A Subject of Prophecy by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 4, 1913

A Subject of Prophecy

By F. M. W.

fondly believes they sometime will be and as the Scriptures of Truth clearly indicate, she will do for America what she has done for the nations where she has held sway. This indeed is the promise. In a letter from Rome announcing the plans of Leo XIII, printed in the New York Sun of July 11, 1892, it is declared, “What the church has done in the past for others, she will now do for the United States.” Is this what the people of the United States desire done?

A Subject of Prophecy

Cardinal Gibbons fondly believes that this union of which he speaks will sometime be an accomplished fact. He says: “You and I may not live to see it, but it will come, I hope, and then the one undivided church will flourish and triumph.” Yes, it will come. As far as this recognition of papal Rome is concerned, it will some day be an accomplished fact. We state this, not on the basis of the cardinal’s hope, but on the strength of the prophecy of the Scriptures. The inspired penman uses the symbol of a beast having seven heads and ten horns to represent the papal system. He declares that one of the heads should be wounded to death, but that the wound should be healed, and all the world should wonder after the beast. This wound of the papal head was inflicted in the events which culminated in the overthrow of papal domination in 1793-98. The healing process from this death-stroke will become an accomplished fact before the close of earth’s history. Rome confidently expects this, and is working to this end.

Her hope is not in the so-called Catholic nations of the world. These for the most part, as a result of her influence, have been relegated to second-class powers in the sisterhood of nations. Her hope is in the so-called Protestant nations of earth. It is to Germany, to England, and particularly to the United States, that she looks for assistance.

And the Roman hierarchy is awake to these changed conditions. It recognizes its loss of prestige in the Old World, and now places its hope upon the New. The Western Watchman (a leading Catholic journal) of Oct. 29, 1908, under the title “America, the Church’s Land of Promise,” says:—

His Holiness is enthusiastic over America, especially the United States. To begin with, he likes our government and our public officials, with whom he has come into official relations. It must be confessed that the United States has treated Rome well whenever we had an opportunity. . . . Despoiled and persecuted in countries called Catholic, hampered and thwarted by Protestant governments, the church is given fair play and even-handed justice only in the United States. No wonder, then, the Holy Father feels kindly toward us as a nation.

And the prophecy declares that largely through the influence of the United States will Rome once more be enthroned among the nations of men. Under the symbol of the two-horned beast of Revelation 13, the United States is brought to view in prophecy, and is there set forth as the agency whereby the nations of men will be led to give once more their influence and prestige to the papal hierarchy.

When that day comes, the record declares that in her heart she will say: “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.” Drunken with flattery, infatuated by her own delusive hopes, Rome does not count on the final reckoning, but that reckoning will surely come. The nations in which she has trusted, and which have humbled themselves to do her bidding, the record declares, shall hate her, and “shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.” Rev. 17:16, 17. Then great Babylon herself shall come into remembrance before God, “for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Rev. 18:5.

Israel of old trusted in Egypt, and it became a broken reed which pierced her hand. Rome has proved a broken reed to the nations that have looked to her in the past, and she will as truly prove a snare and a delusion to the nations that hope in her for the future.

It is against the great system of error represented in the Papacy that we war, not with the men and women belonging to the Roman Catholic communion. Many of these are honest but deceived in their religious convictions. They long for clearer light, and it is for those who rejoice in the liberty and blessings of the gospel of Christ, to point out to those in darkness the way which leads upward to light and liberty and heaven.

F. M. W.